This document discusses moving assessments online, especially exams, during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides principles and guidance for implementing online exams, including designing fair assessment tasks, communicating clearly with students, and providing support. Challenges of online exams like ensuring academic integrity are addressed. The document directs readers to the university's Assessment & Feedback Toolkit for more resources, including advantages and tips for implementing unsupervised take-home exams. Staff are encouraged to share examples of good online assessment practices.
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Context: Assessment for
learning at BU
• BU has embedded the principles of assessment for
learning (Sambell 2011) in policies and resources to
enhance assessment and feedback practices.
• Far reaching initiatives have included major assessment
policy revisions; assessment & feedback workshops;
masterclasses with experts; co-creation projects with the
Students Union; good practice guides, an online
Assessment & Feedback Toolkit - Open Educational
Resource and Blog posts.
• We will focus today on updates to assessments online,
specifically exams, as a response to the current
requirement for distance learning.
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How best to support staff implementing
assessment during this significant disruption?
Sally Brown and Kay Sambell shared some very
helpful resources when ‘lockdown’ started.
https://sally-brown.net (see the post of 2nd April)
We realised staff needed concise and BU specific
information whilst rapidly adapting to extensive
changes to their normal ways of working.
A key challenge for staff was moving exams
online, if another form of assessment was not
possible.
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Please respond in the chat box
• What did you identify as the challenges
and solutions for learning development
in the immediate
need to re-design
assessments,
especially exams?
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Moving exam assessment online:
starting with principles
Is an exam a requirement of the professional, statutory or
regulatory body for your programme. Could you set another form of
assessment?
“BU promotes alternatives to traditional handwritten exams, by
expecting a wider range of time-limited assessment tasks and
retaining traditional hand-written exams only where there is a
PSRB requirement or other context-driven requirement.” (extract
from assessment design policy)
Use existing technology that is already familiar to staff and to
students. There are suggestions in the TEL Toolkit.
https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/about/our-people/centre-fusion-
learning-innovation-excellence/tel-toolkit
Design exam tasks that set a fair challenge to students. For
example include a requirement to apply the knowledge to a real-life
or hypothetical situation.
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Principles cont.
Plan around a timetable that includes:
• Letting students know what form the exam will take, how they can prepare for it,
when it will take place, and how they will submit their exam answer or response. A
new Assignment Brief will need to be provided. Video info can be more powerful than
only written info.
• Providing sample questions or practice materials, to prepare for the possible exam
content and to check that students have access to suitable IT equipment off-campus
• Fixing a release date and time, when the exam question/problem/test materials are to
be communicated to students.
• Deciding on a submission date and time which is realistic and feasible
• Planning how to advise and support students with questions about any aspect of the
exams (e.g. via FAQs and Q&A discussion board in advance; technical helpdesk
during)
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Update in the Assessment &
Feedback Toolkit on
Unsupervised exams at home:
Advantages
• Assessment is undertaken off-campus, in whatever location students may be distancing, isolating
or shielding.
• The time period, and the ability to access materials, may allow students to better demonstrate their
knowledge and their use of sources.
• Higher order cognitive skills (argument, application, comparison, critique etc.) and the use of
sources may be more easily assessed than in on-campus traditional exams.
• Can be more inclusive and require fewer adjustments for individual students. For instance, take-
home assessments can accommodate students who would need additional time in a traditional
exam, and students can use their own computer equipment with support software.
• When submissions are word-processed and electronically submitted they are more legible than
hand-written scripts, and can be marked by two academics simultaneously. With student
permission, past answers can be anonymised and shared as exemplars.
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Update in the Assessment &
Feedback Toolkit on
Unsupervised Exams at home:
challenges
• Students need to provide their own workspace and
computer equipment.
• Adequate support should be available (both technical, and
for clarification in case of factual errors in questions etc.) for
the duration of the take home assessment.
• Take-home assessments carry an increased risk of
unauthorised collaboration between students.
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Update in the Assessment &
Feedback Toolkit on Unsupervised
Exams: Student experience
Student experience
• Students may find a take-home assessment less stressful than a traditional exam
(see Weber, McBee and Krebs, 1983) for a range of reasons (familiar location,
access to materials, additional and more flexible time). Each assessment task must
be accompanied by clear guidance.
Reliability, validity, fairness, and inclusivity
• Questions should be designed to match with the unit Intended Learning Outcomes
and Level Outcomes and checked by colleagues for possible misinterpretation.
• Written instructions should be carefully prepared so as to minimise student stress and
queries during the assessment period. A Frequently Asked Questions (about the
process) or Discussion Board facility prior to the exam could be set up in the VLE
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Please respond in the chat box
• What ideas will you take away from this session?
• Do you have any tips for implementing assessment online?
We are developing case studies of good practice in assessment &
feedback for inclusion in the Assessment & Feedback Toolkit;
please let us know if you would like to contribute a short case study.
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Assessment & Feedback Toolkit
• Staff intranet version for demonstration
https://staffintranet.bournemouth.ac.uk/aboutbu/professiona
lservices/centreforexcellenceinlearning/assessmentandfeed
backtoolkit/
click here
• OER Version
https://www.cemp.ac.uk/projects/AFT/index.php
NB – this version is being updated in line with the staff intranet
version but does not yet have all the new resources.
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Resources to explore
Sally Brown’s blog (UK)
https://sally-brown.net
BU Technology Enhanced Learning Toolkit
https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/about/our-people/centre-fusion-learning-innovation-
excellence/tel-toolkit
BU Assessment & Feedback Toolkit – external link via Debbie’s page.
https://www.cemp.ac.uk/projects/AFT/index.php
Transforming Assessment (Australia)
https://transformingassessment.com
Assessment Design Decisions (Australia)
www.assessmentdecisions.org
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Do stay in touch…
Anne Quinney aquinney@bournemouth.ac.uk
Debbie Holley dholley@bournemouth.ac.uk
Read and subscribe to our Blog
https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/cel/tag/blog/
We are indebted to Professor Dai Hounsell,
Visiting Professor, for his expertise, wisdom
and generous use of his time in collaborating
with us in developing our vision, knowledge
and resources.
(Images in the slides: copyright Anne Quinney. If you wish to use them please credit me)
